


set your grief down

by Ro29



Series: Messing around in the Soft Wars Sandbox [16]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers being assholes, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Episode: s01e02 Rising Malevolence, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, brothers being brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29074830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29
Summary: In the aftermath of theMalevolence, Wolffe returns to Kamino.17 does what he can.
Relationships: Alpha-17 & CC-3636 | Wolffe
Series: Messing around in the Soft Wars Sandbox [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937752
Comments: 7
Kudos: 106
Collections: Open Source Soft Wars





	set your grief down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/gifts), [Gobayern16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gobayern16/gifts).



> for the prompt; The first time Wolffe is back on Kamino and face to face with Alpha-17 after losing all his men to Grievous and the Malevolence.

Wolffe returns to Kamino with ghosts trailing in his wake and his shoulders weighed down with grief, anger vicious in his chest.

He steps off the ship and 17 is waiting, expression blank and Wolffe wants to snap.

He turns on his heel, doesn’t make it even a step before 17 calls out, sharp and demanding, “ _Wolffe_.”

All of Squad Shebs were assholes, stubborn and irreverent and not prone to listening to authority well.

17 had learned how to work around that as they grew up, knew what things to back down on and let them win, what things to push. 17 had learned how to deal with all of them, both alone and together.

There were tones of voice the Shebs could get away with ignoring, with teasing and pushing and denying.

This is not one of those, this is the voice 17 used when Bly came back from training shaking with red-rimmed eyes, when Wolffe was angry enough to lash out, when Cody was pushing too far and still too young to have figured out to be wary of the trainers.

Wolffe freezes and 17’s hand wraps tight around his arm.

“Walk with me.” 17 says, and Wolffe can’t read anything from him.

He walks.

Kamino is the same as it’s always been, it hasn’t changed, but everything else has.

Wolffe grits his teeth and sets his jaw and the ugly thing in his chest curls up to rest.

The 104th had _just_ been reinforced with a transfer of shinies fresh off Kamino. When the Malevolence hit them, they were a battalion a thousand men strong.

Of the near a thousand men under his command, Wolffe is left with barely enough to qualify as a platoon.

It is a failure on his part, clear and infuriating for all that he could’ve done nothing to stop it.

He thinks of bodies in space and the desperation burning bright in his chest as the life pods started being shot down, thinks of the fact that even having the men left he did was a miracle in the face of all that.

His rage is a vicious thing, and he breathes through it.

17 shakes him and Wolffe realizes that he lost time at some point.

He doesn’t know where they are, just knows that 17’s hand is pressed hard and grounding on the nape of his neck, the other tight around his wrist.

Wolffe grits his teeth, feels like a Little again and is furious.

He speaks, tries for even and only manages strained, “Let go of me.”

17 snorts, face neutral but eyes gentle, “Shut it _di’kut_.”

Wolffe’s chest is cracked open and he has lost near all of his men and he can’t afford to be coddled.

His shoulders are curled forward and the rage in his heart creeps up his throat, overwhelming and violent.

“ _Get off me,_ ” he growls and his voice comes out thick, infuriates him further until he wants to shake something or punch something or hide away until he knows he won’t make an embarrassment of himself.

17 hums, lets go of him and raises an eyebrow, eyes searching.

It does nothing for the ugly thing inside of his chest, and he snarls out a curse.

17 cuffs the back of his head gently, “Where’s your head?”

Wolffe breathes and leans forward, knocks his head against 17’s chestplate, feels the hand settle back where it was before.

“I’m not in Crisis.” he says, firm and 17 snorts again.

“Not _yet_ ,” he concedes, and nudges both of their buckets to the ground so they can sit down on the crates.

It’s a storage closet of some kind, though Wolffe can’t recognize it right off the bat, doesn’t really care much.

They stay like that for a moment, silent. Wolffe with the anger churning in his stomach, the ugly thing in his chest. And 17 standing steady, feet planted, grounding.

It’s infuriating, it makes him want to shake apart, it makes him want to rage and fight.

He does none of that, closes his eyes instead and lets himself pretend he’s still only second-cycle and stupid and upset about some karking nightmare.

Kamino had prepared him for war, for fighting.

It had never managed to prepare him for loss.

17 squeezes the hand around the back of Wolffe’s neck, let’s it fall away and leans back, asks again, "Where's your head?"

Wolffe grunts, throws a hand out to gesture to the room around them, “Here.”

17 levels an exasperated glare at him and Wolffe ducks the cuff this time.

“Done being a brat?” 17 asks, “Or are you aiming to get some biting in too?”

Wolffe glares, bares his teeth and gets a snort for his troubles.

17 has grown annoyingly immune to some things, it makes getting back at him exceedingly difficult.

“You’ll be ready to ship back out in three days,” 17 says, knows Wolffe well enough to know he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Wolffe sets his jaw. He has three days, and then he will ship back out with the ragged and tiny remnants of his Pack and new men to replace the ones he lost.

“ _Wolffe_ ,” 17 stresses, slouched easy against the wall, meets Wolffe’s gaze with knowing eyes.

Wolffe twitches, debates the merits of actually biting him before deciding it would just make 17 unbearably self-righteous after the initial round of cursing.

“What?” he asks, voice even.

17 sighs, taps at his arm and his expression is serious, “You keep letting that guilt brew under your bucket and there won’t be room for anything else.”

Wolffe grits his teeth and 17 knocks their knees together.

There is, he knows, nothing that he could’ve done better than he did, no way he could’ve made sure all of his men made it out alive, not when they’d been caught in a trap and left no way out.

There was nothing he could’ve done, and that almost makes it worse in the end.

Wolffe has never handled being left hopeless well.

17 sighs again, sits up and presses forward, wraps his hand around the back of Wolffe’s neck for the third time less than an hour and tugs him into _keldabe_ gently.

Wolffe goes easy into it, feels the last of the fight drain out of him, the ugly twisted up thing in his chest crawling up his throat until it’s hard to breathe.

He closes his eyes and 17 hums, “You’re a piece of _osik_ sometimes, but this wasn’t your fault.”

Wolffe snorts and hates himself a little for how wet it sounds.

“Kark off 17,” he mutters and 17 huffs.

“Leave the moping to Bly,” he suggests, acknowledges that Wolffe doesn't want to talk about it anymore, “he’s much better at it.”

Wolffe laughs and it doesn’t make up for any of it, doesn’t fix anything but, he’s steadier, just a bit.

“I’ll tell 6 you were the one who set us on him during our third-cycle,” he threatens and 17 aims a hit to his side.

“Shut it brat, never happened.”

Wolffe’s lip twitches up, and he hums, asks, “Who will he believe though?”

17 pulls back, narrows his eyes and curses, grabs Wolffe into a headlock with a hissed, _“Karking pain in my side.”_

Wolffe grins sharp and he is still holding the loss of his pack heavy in his heart but, it’s a bit easier to carry now.

The anger in his chest is a simmer instead of an all-consuming roar, and the grief settles for now.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to find me other places I have a [writing tumblr](https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com) and a [fandom tumblr](https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please come yell at me about Star Wars and DC!


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